


So Then I Took My Turn

by amante_del_latte



Series: Giallo-verse [2]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 18:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14478600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amante_del_latte/pseuds/amante_del_latte
Summary: “Ray,” Brad warns, exasperated and just slightly sharp. Ray sputters to defend himself, but Brad speaks over him. “I already have one beast in this house; why would I need a dog when I have you, a trailer park monstrosity?”Part 2 of the dog fic, which wouldn't let me not write it.





	So Then I Took My Turn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [truistic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/truistic/gifts).



Ray’s going to ask him something, and Brad knows it. He’s been watching Ray since dinner, his shoulders and back tense despite Ray’s best efforts to come off nonchalant. Ray only further made himself suspect when he interrupted Brad as he changed into his pajamas, pushed him until he sat on the bed before Ray knelt between his knees. That had been a dead giveaway, but he had enjoyed the “free” blowjob regardless. Now Ray was fresh out of shower, making a show of getting dressed like he knew Brad was watching him out of the corner of his eye instead of reading an article off his iPad. He probably did, honestly - as well as Brad knew Ray, Ray knew Brad better. He proved it when he finally flopped onto the bed, wiggling until he burrowed his nose against Brad’s thigh, and then looked up at him with big brown doe eyes. Shit. That blowjob definitely wasn’t free.

“What’re you reading?” Ray starts, going for a casual approach. Brad humors him despite every beaten-in marine instinct screaming this is a trap.

“The article you showed me.” Brad tilts the iPad just slightly so Ray can see it. He remembered Ray mentioning it a few days ago. ‘ _Literal_ _devil dogs, homes!_ ’ Ray had exclaimed, pointing at the article in the print edition of Popular Science. ‘ _Fetching bombs and biting terrorists and shit. Just can’t let ‘em near any Trombleys!_ ’

“It’s pretty interesting,” Brad conceded, tilting the iPad back, “but it’s about sniffing bombs and therapy dogs, not dog soldiers or human-dog hybrids like you were spouting off about.”

“But how _cool_ would that be, Brad?” Ray almost whined, swatting at Brad’s leg for effect. “Besides, how do you know Walt wasn’t part dog? If anyone had Labrador DNA implanted in them, it was him. He had the eyes for it.” Brad looks at Ray again, entertaining for just one second that Ray’s eyes are much nicer than Walt’s. He feels his mouth quirk, and that only makes Ray smile wider. Brad makes like he’s going to push Ray’s head into his leg so he stops looking up at him like that, but ends up just running his hands through Ray’s hair, relishing the way it makes Ray’s eyes flutter closed.

“Shut up, Ray.” Brad turns his attention back to the iPad but leaves his hand on Ray’s head, one or two fingers curling absentmindedly through his hair. Ray almost purrs, and Brad’s all but forgotten that Ray was poised to broach something, until Ray speaks again.

“You know, Bradley, speaking of that article,” he starts, and Brad’s fingers still.

“What about it?” Brad prompts when Ray falters, though he doesn’t turn away from the iPad.

“I was wondering, you know, dogs are so cool and-”

“Ray,” Brad warns, exasperated and just slightly sharp. Ray sputters to defend himself, but Brad speaks over him “I already have one beast in this house, why would I need a dog when I have you, a trailer park monstrosity?” Ray goes quiet, and Brad’s worried for a moment he’s actually upset.

“I was just thinking,” Ray’s voice is soft and slow, “of when you get… _out...”_ his last word is a whisper, and Brad needs to blink for a moment to remember what he means. They’ve been avoiding the subject so much Brad’s surprised Ray is mentioning it. It’s been about a month since their last fight about this, when Brad got hurt during a training exercise. Brad’s been on mandatory leave since, and Ray has been giving him space, making meals when Brad disappears with his bike or board all day, saying nothing when Brad jerks awake and moves to the couch at ungodly hours of the night. He’d appreciated that, but this makes him uncomfortable. He frowns to show it, and Ray’s lips purse together.

Brad wonders what he was going to say. They’d have more time? Brad needs a friend if he can’t find a job? Ray would prefer something else be around him if Brad’s alienating himself? He doesn’t want to hear a single one of those, and waiting is agony. He finally looks down at Ray, who’s looking up at him - eyes soft but searching, waiting for Brad to be ready to hear him.

“I think a dog would be good for us.” Ray’s voice is even, but Brad knows he’s choosing his words carefully. It pisses him off, to feel coddled like that. He scowls, and Ray’s lips press together again.

“Good for us,” Brad repeats, speaking as if the words are sour on his tongue. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ray closes his eyes for a stretch of time, and Brad doesn’t like the look in them when they reopen. He’s not angry, or even sad. It’s more like… pity. He reaches a hand up to Brad’s shoulder and rests it there, his thumb stroking over Brad’s skin.

“Come on, Brad,” Ray says, voice even softer than before, “do you really need me to spell it out for you?” Brad falters for a moment, because he really doesn’t know what Ray means, but Ray’s gaze flicks to the iPad for just a second and, suddenly, Brad’s thoughts click into place.

His initial reaction is anger. He could scream, with how angry he is over Ray doing this to him, patronizing him. A weaker man would scream, but Brad isn’t a weak man - despite what Ray seems to suddenly think. Brad ices over instead. He shrugs Ray’s hand off his shoulder and tears himself away from the warmth of Ray’s body against his leg. He throws off the covers and gets out of the bed, ignoring Ray calling his name after him. He shuts the door gently behind him, just because he knows it’ll piss Ray off, and goes to settle down on the couch.

Brad seethes only for a bit, after he sits down but before he goes and grabs the couch blanket and a spare pillow from the hall closet. He’s feeling only slightly better when he settles in, laying on his back, until he opens his iPad and sees that stupid dog article again. He locks it immediately and tosses it over the coffee table and onto a chair, just softly enough that it won’t bounce off. He crosses his arms over his chest, now just as pissed as before, and stays that way until he falls asleep.

*

Sleeping with his arms crossed over his chest proves to be a mistake.

Brad wakes up with a few jolts, fear coursing through his body because he thinks he can’t move. He dreamed of being tied down, a POW. He uncrosses his arms as he comes around, drenched in sweat and his heart pounding between his ears. His breathing is shallow, but it starts to even out after a minute or so. That is, not before he thinks he hears creaking down the end of the hall, followed by the soft click of his bedroom door opening. Brad holds his breath then, worriedly wondering how loud he must have been for Ray to hear him. But maybe he was just imagining things, because he falls back to sleep before he hears the door close.

*

Ray leaves for work early the next morning, and Brad pretends to be asleep while Ray moves around. He’s decidedly less quiet than usual, banging and stomping as he gets ready to go, but Brad doesn’t give in to him. Even though he’s mad at Ray, Brad still feels a surge of melancholy when Ray closes the door behind himself and starts up his car, because it means Brad’s going to be alone all day again.

It doesn’t take long for Brad to move back to the bed, even though he wouldn’t have a couple years ago. Maybe being away from the corps is making him weak after all. But he reasons that sitting stubbornly on the couch won't do him any good and, besides, Ray wouldn't even know he retreated here anyway.

When he flops down on the bed his face catches some of Ray’s pillow, and he finds himself inhaling deeply to take in the smell. It’s Ray, but clean - the smell of his freshly washed hair and skin. He prefers clean Ray to filthy MOPP suit Ray but, if he’s being honest, he doesn’t mind remembering that smell either. But remembering the smell of a MOPP suit means remembering Iraq, war in general, and remembering his career is near finished. The comfort bed brought him is replaced by melancholy again. His hand clenches and he feels the iPad in it - he must have swiped it off the chair out of habit.

Brad pulls himself up to a sitting position and unlocks it, only to find that stupid dog article staring him in the face. He grimaces, is about to swipe it away when his eyes settle on a sub-heading: _Dogs, Vets, and PTSD_. Brad’s stomach sinks before his brain can catch up and shut it down - like his body knows better than his mind how he should react. Those are taboo letters, something that claims too many good men and something Brad Colbert would never even entertain the idea of being afflicted with. Until now, with doubt creeping into his mind - is that what Ray wanted him to see? The thought worries Brad; if Ray really thinks Brad isn't okay, maybe he isn't.

After all- when Ray first came back from Iraq, he had nightmares. He and Brad weren’t together then, but Ray’s recounted them once or twice when he feels up to sharing. He would scream in his sleep, break into a fit, wake Mama Person with all his banging and yelling. She’d have to burst into the room and shake him awake, assuring him he was home and not back in the desert. He saw a therapist, was officially diagnosed, and Brad would have never been able to tell if he didn’t know. But Brad doesn’t have fits like that, and he doesn’t fall into silent spells like Ray does sometimes. Except, he does have nightmares… and he has been withdrawn and angry.

Brad feels some of that anger surge up within him now, but it’s quickly extinguished by worry. He can no longer ignore the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he abandons his iPad in favor of a computer, gearing up for a day of research.

* 

Ray comes home less mad, but tenser than when he left; Brad can tell by the way Ray carefully closes the door and tentatively starts through the house looking for him. Ray finds Brad in their bedroom, laid out on the bed with the lights off. Brad wonders if, in the combination fading evening sunlight and light from the hall coming into the room, his eyes look as puffy as they feel. He assumes they do, because he watches Ray’s silhouetted figure and how his tension seems to dissolve. Ray closed the door behind him and moves to the bed without a word, shucking his shoes as he goes. He climbs under the covers, work clothes and all, and starts to pull Brad against him. Brad allows himself to be moved; in fact, he finds the motivation to facilitate the process, twisting and shimmying until his head is resting against Ray’s chest, nose against his shirt, rising and falling with Ray’s breath. It’s the comfort that does it, Brad thinks. Ray’s smell, his arms around Brad, the warmth of it all is too much. Ray doesn’t say anything when Brad cries, and Brad can’t thank him enough for it. His tears fall, and Ray just lets the Iceman melt.

One week later, Brad is officially out.

Two weeks later, they get a dog.

**Author's Note:**

> I have at least 1 more part of this planned that isn't finished yet, among all my other unfinished things.  
> For, again, Chase.


End file.
